Urban Environmental Studies Residency 2012: Registration Reopens for March Term

By Michael Mancini, assistant to the dean, Central New York Center

February 7, 2012

Registration for the 2012 Urban Environmental Studies Residency will be reopened for certain studies, listed below, so that students interested in participating, but who were unable to register in the January term, can do so in March.

The focus of this course will be to develop students' critical and analytical thinking about natural resources and the environment in relation to economics and policy and sustainability using a blended model of delivery. Readings and assignments will be delivered within the ANGEL platform, supplemented by open-discussion sessions. The framework of residency sessions will include review of previous assignments, discussion with a focus on current real-world issues, as they relate to course content, and a presentation that focuses on future assigned readings. Local issues to be explored include water and air quality, energy consumption, transportation, biodiversity and recycling.

This course should appeal to students in either a business or social-science discipline. Undergraduates who have had minimal exposure to economics and management decision making and students with an advanced understanding of economics should find the contents of this course interesting and challenging. The course will be presented in eight modules that complement economic theory with timely and real-world applications. Students will develop a perspective of the relationship between market activity and the environment.

Learners will gain a broadened knowledge and deeper understanding of the urban environmental writing and ecocriticism movements, as well as related values and practices, by studying key texts as models for their own work. This is a wholly interdisciplinary, green approach to writing, creative writing and criticism, and learners will discuss and workshop their own written pieces with the end goal being a polished portfolio of original work. Participants may choose to focus on a specific approach, such as ecopoetics or environmental nonfiction, or they may complete a portfolio that displays a range of styles and approaches.

Students will explore the broad, interdisciplinary field of urban ecology, examining how habitat fragmentation in urban areas has impacted animal and plant species’ populations and the physical environment upon which those species depend. Specific topics of emphasis will be biodiversity, species migration, introduction of nonnative/invasive species, erosion, strategies for surface water control and urban microclimates. They also will explore how urban centers have attempted to mitigate fragmentation by conserving and/or restoring natural areas or recreating green spaces on lands owned by the urban center. Students will consider the impacts those green spaces have on the community and the environment.

Urban Plants Wild and Domesticated: A Study of the Ethnohistory/Culture of Urban Plants Tutor: Drew Monthie 4 credits. Liberal, advanced Meets general education requirements in natural science and social sciences

Plants have influenced everyday life in urban settings throughout human history. Plants were often a determining factor in the settlement of urban areas, providing food, building materials and aesthetic pleasure. After settlement of an urban community, the reintroduction of plants made cities more livable. This study looks critically at the various human-related functions of urban plants, such as:

ethnohistory in the landscape, including as food

forage

cultural significance

Students will learn to identify some of the common native and introduced species of woody and herbaceous plants in the urban setting and the quid pro quo between plants and humans in the urban environment.